


Life To Fix

by WetSammyWinchester



Series: Life To Fix [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Drinking, Implied Sam Winchester/Sam Winchester, M/M, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Season/Series 04, Time Travelling Sam Winchester, Vessel Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-31 19:08:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17855351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WetSammyWinchester/pseuds/WetSammyWinchester
Summary: Rescuing Dean from Hell was the easy part. Sam knew life would be complicated for the three of them dealing with Dean’s trauma and Old Sam’s guilt. What he didn’t plan on was that Lilith would be back to put the Righteous Man back where she needs him - in Hell.Sequel toPick Myself Up Off The Ground





	Life To Fix

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [Pick Myself Up Off The Ground](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10237247>Pick%20Myself%20Up%20Off%20The%20Ground</a>.%20Title%20is%20from%20<a%20href=). Title is from [The Record Company song](https://open.spotify.com/track/33b8AZ0yAFogx28aKkT1BM?si=ApLmFSgPS0yafTEB0bK75w). 
> 
> Thanks to beta [nigeltde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigeltde/pseuds/nigeltde) who kept me going on this and has been a great friend during tough times! 
> 
> Huge shoutout to [quickreaver](https://quickreaver.livejournal.com/) for her gorgeous art ([see full LJ art post here](https://quickreaver.livejournal.com/167254.html) or leave all the love and kudos on [her AO3 artpost here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17886293)). I’m so grateful to work with her on this fic and talk about our shared love of Sam!

  


The terrors happen the second night they’re in the motel. 

Sam catches an elbow to the chin and then Dean is thrashing, banging his head against the headboard and calling Sam’s name. Dean won’t wake up and won’t respond despite Sam’s whispers of _you’re alright, I’m right here, it’s gonna be okay_. All Sam can do is drape himself over Dean’s back, feeling the heat rolling off his skin, and anchor him against his chest. The physical contact seems to work and after a few more minutes, Dean’s arms fall slack to the mattress. Another five minutes go by as Dean kicks the sheets out, twisting his legs in a hazy half-sleep before he falls still. His lips part and his breathing is less labored and Sam’s heart finally slows down again.

“Is he okay?” a sleepy voice asks from the other bed. Sam turns to look over his shoulder and feels a shard of guilt that he forgot the other man was in the room.

“He will be.” 

“Not a surprise—“ An unfinished thought hangs in the air between them.

“I thought pulling him out early would help. I thought you’d know how to--” Sam whispers back.

“Fixing twenty years of hell memories isn’t in my bag of tricks. I’m sorry.”

In the silence that follows, Sam visually checks the room as he holds his brother’s warm body against him. The sigils on the walls, the salt at the doors and windows, the three small black hex bags that sit on the nightstand between the beds. All the protections against angels and demons can’t help Dean to fight against the horrors in his own mind.

“We’ll figure it out.” 

Dean shifts and curls into Sam’s side, fingers wrapped around the sleeve of Sam’s t-shirt. He looks young like this, more like a scruffy child than a thirty-year-old who spent four months in Hell, and Sam brushes the damp hair off his forehead. “He’ll be fine. He’s always fine.”

He hears the bed sheets rustle across the room. “Yeah, I know. Good night, Sam.”

“Good night, Sam.”

  


It wasn’t like they had a blueprint for this, Sam thinks as he brushes his teeth.

Six weeks ago, Sam was lost. Dean was dragged to Hell as Sam held his lifeless body.

Knowing his brother was trapped there, that he had given up his life to bring Sam back to life, continued to eat at him for those six weeks. He drank too much, he flung himself into hunts, he just disengaged. Bobby tried for a few weeks, leaving him voice messages that he ignored, but it didn’t help. 

Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe the grief but Sam doesn’t remember much from those months when he drank, he hunted, he made sloppy decisions. Like working with Ruby. 

Dean was his anchor and Sam was adrift, every day drowning a little more. The thing was when Ruby was there, he just didn’t care. He hadn’t tried to save himself. If anything, he tied greater weights around his ankles, hoping they would drag him down to Dean.

He probably wouldn’t have survived. But then an older version of himself showed up. 

When Old Sam appeared in his motel room, a haggard reflection staring back at him in a bathroom mirror, Sam thought he had to be a shifter or a demon. Those would have been simpler to understand than some time-traveling version of himself that allowed Lucifer to possess him and end the world. There was only three years difference in their age but Old Sam was worn in ways Sam couldn’t imagine. Dumped like an empty husk by the side of the road after Lucifer burned most of the world, finally returning to Heaven, Old Sam had clawed his way back through time. The possession left some remaining grace in him, just enough for a spell to travel back in time to rescue Dean before he broke the first seal.

Get Dean out, that was the plan. That was the only plan. And they succeeded. 

He sighs and rinses his purple toothbrush under the tap before throwing it back in his kit. Walking out of the bathroom, he sees Dean huddled up and talking with Old Sam on the far bed. They sit close together and their conversation is whispered and intimate, and the scene reminds Sam so much of Dean and Dad and being on the outside that it’s like a punch to the face.

“Hey,” he says and the two move apart on the mattress.

“Hey,” Dean says and stands up. His hair has dried into messy spikes after his shower and there are dark smudges under his eyes but he looks like the same Dean that Sam was with weeks ago, down to the gold amulet that Sam put around his neck three days ago. “Was thinking about grabbing us some breakfast before we hit the road.” Dean sweeps the room key off the table and is out the door before Sam can open his mouth. He turns to Old Sam who hasn’t moved from the bed and raises his eyebrows.

“The road?” The two had cleaned the room up while he was in the shower and both Dean and Old Sam’s duffels are packed and sitting next to the weapons bag on the table. “Where are we going?”

“I think it would be good for us to go on a case,” Old Sam says. He looks better now than he did a few days ago at Dean’s graveside. The spell required so much blood - _blood to bring back blood_ \- and Old Sam had been willing to sacrifice himself for the spell. Penance for what he had done to Dean when Lucifer was riding him. 

Now, Old Sam sits so still on the mattress, his eyes looking at the green chenille of the bedspread instead of Sam and it sets Sam’s teeth on edge. He looks out the motel room window to see Dean walking away, crossing the gravel parking lot to a line of strip mall stores across the way with his head down and his hands shoved deep in his pockets despite the late September heat.

“Huh. You sure he’s ready for it?” 

Old Sam shrugs and finally looks up. “Better than the alternative. Can’t stay holed up in this motel room forever.”

Staring into Old Sam’s eyes wasn’t like a mirror. Sam could see the same colors, the same tilt to his eyes that he saw when he stood in the bathroom, but there were shifting depths that made Sam unsure of the feelings there. They spent a month getting to know each other, working together. The two of them should be happy, relieved; instead, it felt like they had fallen out like gears inside a broken clock.

“What kind of hunt?”

“Saw something in Des Moines that looked interesting. Spirits in a cornfield.”

“Wow, and you found all of this while I was in the shower for fifteen minutes?” The corners of Sam’s mouth pull down, and he doesn’t speak for a minute as his heartbeat thumps in his ears. He shakes his head to clear the noise. “You two making plans without me?” 

Old Sam gets up and walks towards him, laying a hand on his arm. “We need to move forward to get through this. We’ll all feel better then.” When Sam ducks his head, Old Sam catches his chin and pulls it back up. His thumb brushes against the hollow of his cheek and Sam can feel his heartbeats begin to slow.

“We’re gonna get through this, okay?”

Sam nods. He wants to believe that. They worked so hard to make this happen but it’s too soon. He feels it in his bones. Dean needs more time.

He starts to protest again but there’s motion through the window and Sam looks up to see Dean walking back across the parking lot, a white bakery bag bunched up in his hand and a carefully blank look in his eyes.

“Hey,” Dean says as he opens the door and studies them where they stand. He wiggles the bag at them. “I got donuts. The raspberry filled ones you like.” He looks from one brother’s face and back to the other. “And I guess you like those, too?”

Sam can’t help but smile and he looks up to see the same smile on Old Sam’s face, too. Dean shakes his head before tossing the bag at Sam’s chest. “Okay, Doublemint twins. Let’s get on the road.”

  


 

Walking into the cornfield, Sam shifts the shotgun to his shoulder and glances at his cell phone GPS before moving into one of the rows. He hears Dean a few rows over as he rustles through the leaves and checks over his shoulder to see Old Sam waiting by the car. The Impala’s headlights light up the dirt and corn at his feet but they only penetrate so far into the field and are soon are swallowed up in darkness. 

It’s only a few weeks from harvest so the corn stalks dwarf them and the ears are full and starting to droop. The silk tassels drape down from the crowns, tangled in with the leaves, and Sam swats them away as they brush against his face. Dean mutters a few yards off to his left.

This field is acres away from the farm’s main operations, a small piece of a much larger patchwork, so they don’t need to worry about running into one of the farm workers working at this time of night.

Corn wolves are another matter.

A harvest spirit - _a feldgeister or korndämon_ \- was Old Sam’s best guess of what they were facing. Reading the lore, it seemed more like a Grimm fairy tale than their typical spirit or monster. It was an old German story handed down by farmers to keep their children from wandering out in the fields at night and getting lost - _listen to your parents or the korndämon will get you_. Old Sam thought they might be protection spirits, summoned by German immigrants who settled across Iowa and Illinois in the late 1800s, to watch over the crops at night.

It was just a fairy tale until a week ago. Some local high schoolers had thrown a late summer kegger at an abandoned farmhouse outside Belle Plaine, Iowa. It wasn’t uncommon in this area to see these houses left behind by the big farming conglomerates that buy up the land, a shadow of the smaller family farms. Cheaper to leave them standing and leave the drives as access roads while plowing the acreage leading right up to them.

Not many people wandered through here at night, not with the distance between other farms and the main farm located so far away, so it was the perfect place for a few bored kids on a long summer night, looking to get out from under their parent’s eyes for a few hours. The old county road that ran out front was rarely used and the acres of corn that surrounded the farmhouse kept them hidden from view. 

Everything was fine until three of the guys decided to play a drunk game of tag out in the dark rows of corn. Their good-natured yelling back and forth as they sprinted through the rows was replaced by growling and thrashing. Their friends listened in horror as one of the guys crashed back through the edge of the field, his arm and chest ripped to shreds, only to be dragged back inside the field before the night went silent again. 

No one saw the animal that killed them but said it seemed big - bigger than the coyotes that ran in these parts. They were other reports of missing people in the area over the years, mostly itinerant workers, so there wasn’t much follow up by local law enforcement until one of their own ended up dead at the edge of this field. 

Old Sam thought that these animal spirits weren’t conjured for evil but for protection and the wolves could have been patrolling the cornfields at night for generations without any problems.

The local mortician was also the coroner in this small town, and he confirmed that a very large animal had mauled the boy, larger than any dog or coyote found in this area. The body still had its heart and other major organs so that ruled out werewolves. Since none of the kids won the lottery or found the love of their lives ten years ago, a crossroads deal seemed unlikely.

They didn’t know what to expect - the lore seemed divided as to whether the corn wolves were a spirit or some kind of demonic shapeshifter - so to be safe, Old Sam insisted that they bring salt rounds and silver bullets. 

The sameness of the rows gives Sam a small spin of vertigo. It’s unrelenting as he walks in, row upon row upon row of stalks, uniform in all directions. Even though he hasn’t stepped out of this row, he pulls out his phone to checks the GPS again. Still heading west. 

The corn on his left rustles, a soft slithery sound from the leaves being pushed back. He can hear Dean talking under his breath so at least they are keeping the same pace as they walk further in. Sam tucks his phone back in his pocket and rests his hand on the Taurus stuck in his waist. 

“Goddammit, I can’t see a thing,” Sam hears Dean to his left as he starts to hack at the corn with his machete which is just like ringing the dinner bell for this monster.

Up ahead the dirt row disappears into the darkness and Sam brings a hand up to brush back the stalks that keep brushing against his face. Dean has stopped hacking and in the silence, Sam notices that the slithering sound in the leaves has moved to his right side. “Dean?”

When there’s no response, he stops and raises the shotgun. When he hears the low growls, they come from the right and seems to be circling in front of him. He tries to trace its movements with the night sight of the rifle and listen for his brother to make sure they don’t shoot each other in the crossfire. Something pushes out of the corn about five yards ahead of him and the green smell of the field is joined by that of a wild animal. He can’t see it well, just a wavering of the corn stalks behind it, but he hears its chuffed breaths and can see the compression of the dirt under what must be its paws as it comes closer.

More thrashing happens his left followed by a shotgun blast and a yelp. 

There are two wolves stalking this field. 

“Sam!” 

The shadow creature in front of him snarls and Sam fires at it. It squeals in pain and backs off some but within seconds, the thing is back and now he can see its outline. Big with large ears and long teeth. A single gunshot and a painful yelp sound over by Dean and it’s followed by silence, and Sam thinks, _okay, silver bullets_. 

He tosses the shotgun to the ground and pulls out his Taurus. His wolf is growling but seems more cautious in its approach after taking the last hit. As it steps towards him, Sam can make out more details - dun-colored fur and amber eyes, its sharp teeth are bared and hackles are raised, and the animal stands as high as Sam’s waist.

Sam waits to be sure it’s close so that the shot counts. The smell of dog gets stronger and as it tenses to leap, he starts firing and hits it in dead center in the chest. With a single cry, it falls to the ground. Sam kneels next to it and when he touches its fur, it disintegrates into wispy shreds of pale corn husks that blow away as he watches in wonder.

  


When he stands up, he hears a harsh panting noise above the corn but can’t determine its direction.

“Sam!” Old Sam calls out and Sam crashes through the corn stalks as the yelling for him continues. He stumbles into one of the rows and sees Old Sam propping Dean up in his arms and his heart drops.

“Is he hurt?” Sam falls to the dirt beside them, searching for blood or injuries and is relieved not to see either. “Dean? Are you hurt?”

Dean turns towards Sam and his eyes are wide with shock, a thin rim of white around the green that shows even in this darkness. Dean doesn’t say anything but a muscle in his jaw continues to clench and unclench.

Sam and Old Sam look up at each other, unsure, and then Sam glances over at the other dead corn wolf. It’s bigger than the other one and he can still see ears and ruffs with fangs hanging down as part of its husk outline. It’s big as a wolf but not as big as a--

 _Hellhound_. Shit. 

Sam walks over to the dead creature and kicks at it, stomping the dried husks down into the dirt. Like the other wolf, all the dead bits blow away into nothing.

“Let’s get him out of here,” Old Sam says.

The two of them wrangle Dean into standing up between them. His face is pale even in the moonlight, as Sam holds it between his palms. His breath is ragged and the pulse under Sam’s fingertips is weak. He nods at Old Sam and they walk him of this field, pushing back the stalks on either side. Once they’re out of the field, Dean shakes them off and tries to walk on his own to the car. He pulls the keys out of his pocket but his hand is shaking and he drops them on the ground where Old Sam sweeps them up.

“Yeah, I’ll drive.” He nods at Sam who bundles Dean into the passenger seat. Dean waves him away when he tries to belt him in with an “I got it. I got it.”

Sam slams the car door shut and takes a deep breath before staring at Old Sam across the car roof. “This was a terrible idea.”

Old Sam’s face crinkles up. “Thought a lay-up like this might help get him outside his head--”

“You weren’t thinking.” 

Old Sam doesn’t respond out loud, just nods, his shoulders slumped down with more layers of guilt than Sam could ever lay on him. 

“Let’s just get back to the motel,” Sam says.

  


Dean disappears into the bathroom when they arrive and Sam paces the length of their room for several minutes before he grabs his wallet and offers to get dinner from the restaurant across the way. 

The case was stupid. Too soon and too close to home for Dean and Old Sam didn’t see that. To be fair, Sam didn’t see it either. He followed Old Sam’s lead like he had been doing for weeks. He watched Dean get taken apart by hellhounds thanks to Lilith and he should have known better. He sits at the bar, too warm in his hoodie and the cheap whiskey he’s drinking and closes his eyes as the next shot burns down his throat before signaling for another one from the bartender.

“Hey, Sam,” says a silky voice on the barstool next to him. He isn’t surprised to see Ruby when he turns. She looks the same as the last time they met when Old Sam told her off and then made hex bags against demons.

“Ruby.” He tosses the new shot down and signals for his bill. “How long you been on our trail?”

“Not hard to find you guys with that penis on wheels that you drive.” She lays a gentle hand on his arm. “Heard Dean’s back topside. How is he?”

“Like you care.” The whiskey and the memory of Old Sam holding Dean in that field fight for space in his head, enough that he doesn’t move away.

“Hell ain’t no picnic. Why do you think I made my way out again?” She waits for him to respond while her fingers rest heavy on his sleeve. “I worry about you. That other Sam? He’s made his choices. And Dean? He may never come back the way he was and let’s face it - Lilith is still out there. She’s not too happy about him being sprung.”

Lilith’s name is like a splash of cold water on his face. He and Old Sam were so focused on rescuing Dean that they hadn’t talked about Lilith much. He pushes back from the bar and wobbles a bit. Despite her size, Ruby is there to steady him.

“I don’t know what that other Ruby did with that other you but c’mon, Sam. I’m here and I just want to help you beat Lilith. If we work together, nothing can stop us.” Her dark eyes sparkle and her lips are blood-red and he stops for a minute to wonder about bad decisions. Maybe Winchesters are just destined to make the same stupid choices again and again, no matter what world they’re in.

He brushes her hand off and pushes past towards the door without a word, thinking of the conversation that needs to happen back in the motel room.

“Sam,” she calls out and he looks over his shoulder. “I’ll be around if you change your mind. I want her gone just as much as you do.”

He escapes through a side door to the bar and gulps down the still-warm air of the Iowa night before he stuffs his hands in his pockets and weaves between the trucks that litter the parking lot to head back towards the motel.

  


The TV is loud enough to hear through the door, playing one of those movies that’s always on the cable stations with Bruce Willis or maybe it’s Denzel Washington - the white noise of their lives. 

Sam stands outside the window, whiskey-soaked thoughts still buzzing, and stares in on the scene inside. He watches as Old Sam bandages a wound on Dean’s hand that he hadn’t noticed before. Dean is wrapped up in a blanket, his eyelids drooping while he leans back against the headboard. In Sam’s drunken haze, he thinks the old guy doesn’t miss a trick to take care of Dean, to touch Dean, _his_ brother - _their brother -_ and it doesn’t leave much for Sam to do but watch outside in the dark.

Old Sam hands Dean some aspirin but Dean sits with them in his palm before Old Sam folds his fingers over them.

“He needs some water,” Sam whispers at them through the window at the same time that Old Sam reaches over to the nightstand and hands Dean a water glass. When Dean doesn’t drink, Old Sam leans in with soft encouraging words and nudges the bottom of the glass up until Dean takes a sip and swallows the pills. The cheesy music of the movie crescendos and Sam glances over to see helicopters blowing up on the TV and men in SWAT uniforms running around, the kind of stuff that Dean loves to watch. When Sam looks back, Old Sam is holding Dean by the back of the neck and speaking into his ear. Sam wants to smash the window with his fist.

Instead, he unlocks the door and walks in. It’s a second before he realizes his mistake - their dinners are still sitting on the counter in the bar, forgotten with the whiskey and Ruby’s arrival.

On the bed, the two of them spring apart as Sam shuts the door behind him. His brother’s eyes, which were wide and rimmed in white in the field, are now half-lidded with sleep but they don’t miss anything. 

“Where're the burgers?” 

Sam holds the doorknob in his hand and bites his lip, wondering if he should suck it up and head back for them, but the whiskey and the air in the room are making him sick. “I… Ruby was there.”

Dean sits up and the blanket falls from his shoulders but Old Sam is the one who responds. “She’s following us?”

Sam nods.

“Does she know Dean is back?” 

Sam ignores Old Sam’s question to walk over to Dean and sits heavily on the edge of the bed, his thigh pressed warmly against Dean’s leg. After all they’ve done to derail this train, this appointment with fucking destiny that they have with angels and demons, they keep ending up right back on on the tracks and the train is moving closer.

Dean leans in close to catch Sam’s eye, his look sharp and focused, the fatigue falling away like the blanket from his shoulders. “What did she say?” When he doesn’t respond, letting his fingers tease out a frayed hole in Dean’s jeans, Dean shakes his shoulder hard. “Sam, you okay?”

Old Sam sits on the other mattress, a silent presence, and Sam finds it easier to meet his eyes and say the words. “She says Lilith is looking for Dean.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dean says under his breath.

“What else did she say?” Old Sam asks and nods at him to continue. The hunt and the alcohol hit Sam all at once and Sam wants to lay down, or shower, or get in the car and have Dean drive them far away but Old Sam won’t let up. “Did she tell you that you’re the only one who can help him? The only one to defeat Lilith?”

Dean takes a hold of the inside of Sam’s forearm, his grip feels like the only thing that is keeping Sam upright. “Sammy? Look at me.”

“Yes,” he says, his words are mumbled and his lips feel like cotton gauze stuck together. “That’s what she said. Me and her together is the only way to beat Lilith.”

“Is this how she got you before?” Dean doesn’t let go of Sam’s arm but looks past him to Old Sam, his voice hardened to a glass shard and his eyes sharp as the incident with the wolves and the earlier hunt fades away. Old Sam purses his lips and nods.

“I’m gonna kill that bitch,” Dean says at last. 

Old Sam stands and takes Sam’s shoulder and tries to pull off his jacket. “C’mon, let’s get you out of these clothes and into bed.” 

“No, I gotta go back, get the food,” he slurs and pushes back but Old Sam grabs his arm and all the fight leaves him. He curls over and rests his forehead against Old Sam’s shoulder and closes his eyes, whispering, “He’s not your Dean.”

“I’m aware,” Old Sam says into Sam’s ear. He wraps a warm hand around his neck, the same way he did with Dean, cradling Sam close. “Not trying to replace you - you know that. Just want to make things right for all of us.” He pushes Sam to sit down on the bed next to Dean and heads for the door. “I’ll get the food and… take a look around.”

Dean and Old Sam nod at each other and he walks out.

The room’s too hot and Sam’s too drunk. Useless too if Ruby’s right about Lilith coming after Dean. He weaves on his feet as he strips off his jacket and Dean stands by to steady him, a fond smile on his face. But Sam doesn’t want fond, not after six weeks of not having Dean, he wants more. He falls sideways on the mattress and pulls Dean down so they are laying face to face. His kisses are warm and whiskey sloppy, soaking in the taste of Dean’s lips. 

“Slow down, Sammy,” Dean says, pulling back.

“No.” His tongue slips between Dean’s lips and he’s satisfied to hear his brother finally sigh and relax into the grip he has on his shoulders “There hasn’t been a minute just for us since you got back.”

“We have lots of time for that,” Dean says. He holds Sam’s face between his palms and they breathe each other’s air. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Know that. But--” Now it’s Sam’s turn to relax as Dean tucks his hair back behind his ear. “I thought you were saved but we’re right back where we started with Lilith wanting you in Hell.”

Dean kisses him, hard this time, as if this kiss could get rid of their trouble. “The other Sam says he can deal with Lilith when the time comes.” His hand slips down to grip Sam’s hip and pull him closer. “And that stalker demon bitch of yours is dead. And I’ll be the one to end her.”

Sam snorts and noses in at Dean’s neck, licking along his jawline. “Pretty sure the old guy has first dibs on that. Speaking of, he could be back any minute.” Sam starts to suck on the spot under Dean’s ear and Dean clenches his fist into the bedsheet to Sam’s smug satisfaction.

“Don’t care,” Dean gasps.

“Here, let me,” he says as he rolls Dean flat on his back and pulls up his flannel shirt to lay a string of kisses down to Dean’s belt buckle. Dean tries to grab his wrists to pull him back up but Sam wiggles away and whips Dean’s leather belt out of the loops, tossing it on the carpet between the beds. He tugs the jeans open and down and Dean grunts, not unhappy, at the force. Dean’s cock looks and smells like it did before in his hands and on his tongue. Sam licks the head and then looks up through his bangs to where Dean’s lips are open and his eyes are dark and his world tilts like it did the first time they did this. “Let me. Let me be the one.”

Dean runs his hand through Sam’s hair, pushing it back away from his face. “You were always the one. Always. Nothing’s gonna change that.” His thumb pulls at Sam’s bottom lip with a smile that’s familiar - fond and heartbreaking and everything that was good before Hell - and Sam slides Dean’s cock back into his mouth. He’s light-headed from the whiskey and lack of air but still takes Dean down until he bumps the back of his throat and begins to suck.

Dean squirms and his breaths become more stuttered. Sam know this dance and grips his hips tight until he hears Dean chanting his name under his breath and jerking into Sam’s mouth as he comes. This time, Sam swallows everything and doesn’t let go until Dean touches his hair again. He gasps for air and licks his lips and teeth for the bitterness from Dean and the smokiness of the whiskey before he crawls back up the mattress to collapse on Dean’s chest.

“Sam, I need to get up.”

“No,” he mumbles back as he grabs onto Dean’s t-shirt and drops into a dreamless sleep.

  


The next morning, Sam wakes up alone. Old Sam’s bed is still made which means he never came back to the room and Dean’s side of their bed is cold. He throws on his sweatpants and t-shirt and walks outside to find Dean sitting on the curb, drinking coffee out of a cheap styrofoam cup. 

“You wake up for the free breakfast buffet?” Sam asks, shielding his hung-over eyes from the thin morning sun.

Dean looks back over his shoulder. “In this dump? Naw, I got this at the gas station down the block.” He pulls another cup from a drink carrier that is sitting next to him and hands it up. Sam sniffs at it and crinkles his nose at the bitter smell. 

“It smells like the gas station.”

Dean laughs and pats the concrete next to him. “Coffee is coffee. It’ll cure your hangover from last night. Plus we need to hit the road.”

Sam sneaks a look at Dean while attempting to drink. He looks good, the sun hitting his hair just right, making the tips look blond instead of brown, and his face seems untroubled by the hunt last night. It’s a relief to see how easily Dean rebounds. Sam isn’t sure that he could say the same if he was the one to go to hell. 

“Have you seen the old me around?” 

“No, I haven’t. Think we should be worried? With Ruby hanging around last night?” Dean squints off in the distance. 

Sam shakes his head. “He knows how to handle her.”

“He does? And what about you? Why is Ruby showing up now, trying to talk to you?” 

When Sam shrugs and does his best to ignore the question, Dean goes back to examining a point in the distance. “Fine, Sam. Are we going to start this again, where you don’t tell me stuff?”

“No. And it’s not a problem. You’re back so I have no interest in talking to her.”

The crunch of gravel in the parking lot makes them both look up to see Old Sam moving towards them from the main road. As he walks up, Dean hands him the third cup of coffee.

“Awww, Dean, you shouldn’t have.” Old Sam smiles and then takes a sniff of the coffee and scrunches up his nose and Dean laughs, a happy sound that Sam hasn’t heard for months.

“You two really are the Doublemint twins.” As Dean stands up and walks to the Impala’s trunk, Old Sam extends a hand to Sam and pulls him up off the curb and then holds out a newspaper to him.

“Found a case. Just the next town over.”

Sam takes the paper and glances at the headline, _Rare Books Collector Killed in Home Invasion_. An assistant had hidden in a closet during the attack and saw three men with black eyes who walked in and crushed the collector’s larynx after asking about some recently-acquired occult books.

“Another hunt seems like a really bad idea,” Sam says as he hands back the paper. 

“No wolves, no dogs,” Old Sam says. “Just a few demons up to no good.”

“Like demons aren’t a reminder of what he went through? And now Lilith looking for Dean and Ruby chasing after us? Seems like we should put a lot of distance between us and any demons.”

“Been thinking about that. Without Dean breaking the first seal, all her plans to pop Lucifer out of the box are on hold. Lilith and all the demons will be hot on his trail - our trail - no matter how many hex bags we use to shield ourselves. And if Ruby can find us, then Lilith can find us. Maybe we stop running and start fighting back.”

“Fight Lilith?” Sam stops in his tracks and looks quickly over at Dean, who’s still busy with his daily once-over of the weapons in the trunk, before dropping his voice to a whisper. “Are you crazy?”

“Maybe,” Old Sam replies. “But the Ruby from my time taught me a trick or two. I think it’s time we use ‘em.”

Sam watches Dean over Old Sam’s shoulders as his brother is finally satisfied with how the trunk’s packed and moves around to the driver’s side door, swinging the keys around his finger. Memories of Hell seem to be pushed to the side this morning but that’s always been Dean’s strength and his weakness, that need to push through to the next thing and not think about consequences.

“Occult books, huh?” Sam scratches his head, not sure if the bad feeling in his gut is about Dean’s recklessness only days after he’s back or if it’s because Old Sam seems to be taking charge again.

Old Sam touches his arm. “It’s your call. If demons were after these books, maybe there’s something in them that they don’t want us to see?”

It feels like familiar bait being dangled on a hook to him and he wonders how often he’s done the same thing to Dean, offering up arguments to steer things in the direction he wanted. He can’t argue with the logic - demons stealing books isn’t the usual M.O. and to have it happen a few towns over from them is a big coincidence. He closes his eyes and breathes, trying to set aside his knee-jerk reactions to their situation and focus on the facts.

“You alright?” Old Sam says and squeezes his arm. He waits for a second for Sam’s response which doesn’t come before continuing. “No, you’re right, let’s get out of town--”

“No,” Sam interrupts. “Make sense. This could be something and it’d be stupid to ignore it.” 

Dean leans against the open car door, his eyes squinting in the early morning sun. “You girls done talking over there? Let’s get this show on the road.”

  


A workman is repairing a heavy oak door on some sawhorses in the front yard when they arrive. He’s focused on sanding down the splintered edges and doesn’t look up as they walk up to the door.

“Can I help you?” An older lady dressed in grey steps into the foyer with a stack of books in her arms. She looks over their suits without much reaction.

“Miss Pritchard? We’re from the insurance company,” Sam starts to say but stops when she frowns.

“The insurance people were here this morning,” she replies, pushing her glasses up her nose.

“No, we’re from the _other_ insurance company,” Dean steps in. “Rare books are unique items require specialty as well as general coverage.” Despite the obvious deflection, she seems reassured by Dean’s charm enough to lead them inside. A large sitting room has been combined with what was a dining room to form an enormous library filled with old books. Dean turns back to Miss Pritchard who is sorting through several small stacks on the table while both the Sams turn to the library shelves and read through the titles.

“So, can you tell us what happened the other day?” he says.

She sets a book down neatly and looks up. “Not much to tell. Mr. Pierce was having his morning tea and going through the list of estate sales and auctions coming up this weekend. I was in the hallway when two men broke in the front door and started to threaten Mr. Pierce for some books he had. They didn’t know what a stubborn man he was.”

“What books?” 

She wrinkles her nose under the bridge of her glasses. “Occult books. Mr. Pierce had just picked up a selection from an estate auction that he was very excited about - end of days, seals, horsemen - that sort of thing. Not my cup of tea but Mr. Pierce was fascinated by the topic.”

Old Sam sidles up to the table. “Were they written in English?”

She eyes him long and calculating, then she looks back over at Sam. “Some,” she replies.

“Latin?” Old Sam asks, still hovering by her shoulder.

She nods. “One in Enochian as well.”

“Do you have the invoice from the auction showing the titles and authors? We’d like to check that against our records,” Sam says and Miss Pritchard looks at him intensely. Perhaps it’s the resemblance between him and Old Sam that has her wondering, but his face flushes under the scrutiny.

“I’m sure I have that list in the back if you want to wait here.” Her eyes look back at Old Sam once more and the corner of her mouth turns up before she leaves.

When the assistant doesn’t return several minutes later, Dean follows her into the back office as the workman from out front comes in. His large frame fills up the doorway to the library and his overalls are covered in wood shavings and his eyes are black.

“Get what you came for?” the demon asks, smiling, as he slips a hunting knife from a sheath on his work belt. He looks between them as Old Sam moves towards the window across the room while Sam pulls out Ruby’s knife. “Not the brightest, are you Winchesters? Why would we need any books on the end of days? We’re the ones bringing it down on all of you.”

“So, you work for Lilith?” Old Sam says, trying to draw his attention and move around in a circle, to divide the demon’s attention between himself and Sam. “Must have pissed her off that we stopped her plan, huh?” The demon snarls and lunges, and, Sam jumps him from behind and stabs him in the back. The wound and its eyes glow yellow before it slumps to the ground. 

Before they can move, Miss Pritchard comes out with Dean held at the point of a kitchen knife. She’s small but the blade looks sharp. She fixes her black eyes on Old Sam. 

“He’s going back to Hell and we start this all over again. But first things first. Lilith said you’ve messed things up before and we can’t have that.” She swings her arm out and a burst of power knocks Old Sam against the bookcase. He slumps to the floor. With her shifting grip, Dean pops her in the face with an elbow and knocks the frail host off her feet backward with his weight while Sam jumps on her and holds the knife to her throat.

“Wait, let’s see what she knows first.” Dean moves to help Old Sam up while Sam settles his weight across the small demon. There’s blood on the floor under her head. Sam feels a spasm of remorse for the woman locked inside but if they get what they want, maybe they can exorcize her later.

Holy water rains down over his shoulders as Old Sam shakes out his flasks. The demon writhes in pain and glares over Sam’s shoulder. 

“Useless old vessel,” she spits out at Old Sam. “Why didn’t you just die after serving our Lord? You serve no purpose here.” She turns to Sam with a sneer. “And you? Well, you’ll serve yours soon enough.”

Remorse is replaced by anger and Sam leans into the knife at her throat and the edge pricks her skin in a sickly golden stripe. “Shut the fuck up.”

Another round of holy water hits her face and she sputters in pain. “No matter what happens to me, there’s a hundred demons out there hunting for all of you. Dean’s going back down where he belongs. In Hell.”

“Not this time.” Sam slices into her and the golden light explodes from her neck and eyes as the demon dies. Shaking, he sits back on his heels and wipes the hair off his forehead with the back of his hand as Dean stares down at the corpse.

“You couldn’t wait a few minutes, Sam? Maybe she would have known--”

“She didn’t,” Sam says, “and we got what we needed. This wasn’t a case - it was a trap. Lilith has traps set up for us all over the area with low-level demons like this doing her dirty work.” 

Dean’s eyes open wider, the urgency of their situation sinking in, and Sam has to look away from the pain there but the only other thing he sees is the old lady crushed beneath him. Another vessel dead, another vessel he can’t save. He tries to wipe his bloody hands on his suit pants but no way to get them clean.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here,” Old Sam says. “We need to go now before Lilith or the cops show up.” 

  


By the time they change out of their suits, Sam’s phone is ringing. He looks at the screen each time but keeps putting it back in his pocket. Dean looks over at the last call and catches Bobby’s name but keeps his eyes on the road.

“Seems like it’s important. Maybe you should call him back.”

He should pick it up but Bobby doesn’t know about Old Sam. Or Dean’s return. That’s a complicated conversation to have over the phone. Never mind the latest news, that the oldest demon in existence is back and tracking them down.

“If what Ruby said was true, he’s probably seeing lots of demon signs out there,” Dean says. “Might be good to let him know. Other hunters need to be prepared. What do you think?” He looks in the rearview mirror at Old Sam and Sam twists to see him shrug. 

“Pretty sure he won’t want to see me,” Old Sam replies, holding his face carefully blank.

“Bobby’s seen plenty of weird stuff,” Dean says. “A time-traveling Winchester isn’t gonna be a big deal for him.”

“I know Bobby.”

“You know your Bobby.”

“My Bobby.” Old Sam laughs, mirthless. “Yeah, he was mine alright.”

“What happened?” Sam says.

“Nothing. Dean’s right. Call him. Gotta rip off that bandage sometime.”

“Then it’s settled.” Dean says.

Sam wants to throw his phone out the window and leave it behind cracked on this Iowa highway. Two months ago, he was all alone and making his own decisions. They were bad decisions for the most part but at least he could think things through without coming to some kind of three-way consensus each time.

He holds the phone in his lap, thinking about those weeks after Dean died and how he dodged every single call from Bobby back then. He hits the call back button and puts it on speakerphone for the others to hear. The phone rings twice before the old man answers.

“Where the hell you been, boy?”

“Hey, Bobby,” he says softly.

“Don’t hey Bobby me when I haven’t heard from you in months.”

Dean looks concerned. They haven’t talked much about what happened during the in-between when it was just Sam on his own. 

Old Sam is right - there are demon signs all over Iowa, Illinois and eastern Nebraska. Bobby tells Sam about electrical storms, cattle mutilations, and random acts of violence and he admits that he doesn’t have a clue what caused everything to go haywire. 

Sam cuts in. “Bobby, all those demons are after us.”

“Us?”

“Me. And Dean.”

The line goes silent as Bobby digests that. “Uh huh.”

“I know what you’re thinking but it’s really Dean. And I have someone else you need to meet as well.” He looks over the seat back but Old Sam is gazing out the window once again, his brow crinkled in thought.

“Great,” Bobby says. “Well, then, guess you need to get to Sioux Falls pronto then.”

  


They don’t talk much on the way. Five hours driving straight through with only a gas pit stop. 

Dean is quiet, focused on the road ahead, and Sam studies the lines of his face. While it’s pliable in sleep, even soft, it’s tighter during the day. Dean hasn’t talked much about Hell yet and Sam wonders about what hasn’t been said. There’s a tic in Dean’s jaw that wasn’t there before, even when they were searching for Dad or when they found out about Sam’s powers. He’d like to know what his brother’s thinking but they’ve never been like it. He’ll just have to wait until Dean’s ready to talk.

Exhausted, Sam lays his head against the passenger side, warm with late morning sun, and drifts off in the front seat to the familiar sound of Ramblin’ Man on the cassette player.

  


Singer’s Salvage Yard never changes. Through the years, there’s the same pile of cars at the entrance of the chain link fence, same weedy yard out front, and the same grumpy man who answers the door. No, that’s not quite right, Sam thinks. This time, Bobby’s face is paler, etched with more lines around his eyes and a few more greys in his beard. Holding onto the door, his eyes water as he looks at Dean’s face but only for a second before he gets whatever was simmering under the surface under control again.

“Made good time.”

“Yeah, we--” 

Bobby’s face screws up tight and his hand goes in his pocket as he looks past Sam’s shoulder to the other face on the porch. Only plan they made on telling Bobby was the two minutes before they drove up to the house debating whether Old Sam should stay in the car and let Sam and Dean introduce the idea of time travel and being an angel vessel. 

“You okay, Bobby?” Dean asks.

“Am I okay? Let’s see - this idjit hasn’t called me for months, you’re back from the dead and you’re standing on my porch with your brother’s evil twin. No, Dean, I’m pretty far from okay.”

Dean laughs and steps inside to hug Bobby before he can pull out a flask of holy water or a knife and the old man relents and hugs back. 

Sam steps over the threshold and sees a can of white paint and a wet paintbrush on the entry table. He glances up to the ceiling and sees where Bobby’s touched up his Key of Solomon in preparation for their arrival. Bobby still has Dean in a hug and when Sam tries to scoot around Dean’s back as he did as a kid whenever they visited but Bobby reaches out to grab Sam’s arm.

“You’ve been pretty busy, Sam.”

He lays his hand on top of Bobby’s and squeezes back and for one second he wonders why he kept himself away from this, away from someone who cared whether he lived or died. He nods and Bobby leads them with a hand on both of their shoulders. Old Sam hesitates outside the door, like a guest waiting to be invited inside before carefully stepping in and looking up as Sam did at the devil’s trap. He walks through it and Bobby gives him a nod.

“How about a beer to celebrate?” Bobby picks up three beers from the coffee table and hands them out. The bottles are warm and Old Sam waves him off.

“Too early for me.”

“My house. Now, drink the beer.” The wary look from before is back in Bobby’s eyes as he holds the last one out. “Sam, Dean, you too. Drink.” Bobby’s relief when nothing happens with Old Sam ratchets the tension down another notch. He claps Dean on the shoulder and walks him back into the kitchen.

“Lilith, huh? Same demon that owned your contract?” he says to Dean, who nods. Their conversation is muted as they disappear behind the wall since drinking their beers.

“You okay?” Sam says. Old Sam still looks spooked in the living room. All his neutrality in the car about seeing Bobby and ripping off that bandage has disappeared now that Bobby and Dean are gone.

“It’s just… last time I saw Bobby, he was in a wheelchair. Inside this house.” Old Sam licks his lips and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Hey, I’ll grab our bags.”

He’s out the door and Sam starts after him. There are no shadows from the high noon sun marking his progress across the gravel. Something is bothering Old Sam about this place, about Bobby - that much is clear - but Sam’s not sure that he wants to dig at it. Every time Old Sam tells him stories from the future, it tugs at his old wounds and all Sam can hear are his future failures. The Croatoan virus, the possession, the apocalypse, and Dean’s death under his heel. What else happened in those five years when Old Sam was inside Lucifer? 

They need a win right now to erase that history. Sam was thinking about it during the drive to South Dakota. He wouldn’t call it a plan just yet, more of the seed of a plan, and he knows that Dean won’t like it. He also knows that they need a win - he needs a win - to set things right. He walks off the porch and follows in Old Sam’s footsteps to the Impala.

“Hey, listen,” he says and Old Sam looks up from the trunk. “I have an idea.”

  


There’s a bedroom upstairs with a twin bed. The room sits next to Bobby’s so Sam and Dean usually ignore it unless one of them is injured, choosing to settle in on the couch and floor. Like camping outside only inside, Dean used to say to Sam when they were little.

“I can take the room upstairs,” Old Sam says, shuffling from one foot to the next from the doorway as Dean begins to pile blankets and pillows on the couch and the floor. 

“Trust me, that bed is worse than the couch,” Dean says. “But I guess you would know that. Besides it would be weird not to have both of you here in the room and man, that sounds really weird to say out loud.” He waves Old Sam over to the couch. “So, age before beauty.”

It isn’t long before they settled in their places, not bothering to remove their t-shirts and jeans. Sam and Dean lay side by side on the floor, close but not touching, not here in Bobby’s living room, while Old Sam curls up on his side on the couch, a pillow tucked under his head, his long legs tucked up at the other end.

Sam wrestles with sleep that night. When he closes his eyes, the old lady’s face from earlier rises up with her dark beetle eyes and her wrinkled lips in a sneer. He hates Ruby’s knife, how easy it is, and Dean was right - no matter how much he doesn’t want to admit it - Sam jumped the gun. He assures himself that the old lady wouldn’t have survived the possession or the fight and he wonders what her life was like away from the books on those shelves. Dad would have said, _don’t worry about things you can’t control, just focus on the job_ , but now it seems like everything is beyond their control and he could go crazy thinking about it.

He rolls on his side, squirming his hip bone against the hard floor to face Dean, searching his face for clues as to how he’s dealing. No terrors tonight, not yet, which is the best they can hope for. He sneaks a hand under the blanket to wrap around Dean’s arm and that touch and the sounds of Dean and Old Sam’s soft breaths help him drift away. 

The sound that wakes him up again is a thin, reedy wail - like an animal in pain. He checks on Dean who is fine and starts to wake as well. The wail turns into a hitching sob and he sees Old Sam, his hands pulled up against his chest, throwing his head back and forth against the pillow. He starts to stand up but Dean holds him back. 

“No, it’s okay. Let me.”

He moves to the couch and kneels next to it, murmuring to Old Sam and touching his shoulder, but the touch seems to aggravate Old Sam still wrapped up in his dream and he tries to push back, burrowing into the couch and pillows as far as he can. 

“No, don’t, please don’t.” 

Even in the dark, Sam can see the sweat pouring down Old Sam’s face and neck, the anguish on his face but Dean is calm, holding tight but not too tight, speaking softly to him to wake him up, ignoring the tortured noises that he is making. Sam remembers this from when he was a kid with nightmares or just two years with his visions, how Dean slides into his big brother duties as naturally as he slips on Dad’s leather jacket.

As Old Sam starts to wake, tears are spilling down his cheeks and he is gasping for breath. “Dean?” he says and despite his size, he sounds like a child. “Make him stop. I can’t stop.”

Dean cups Old Sam’s face which calms him down. “Stop who?”

“Lucifer. He made me watch.” Old Sam gives a hiccup of breath as his eyes dart around, returning to a spot on the far side of the room. “Bobby was right there, in his wheelchair. Demons tracked him back from camp and Lucifer made me watch. Bobby was laying on the ground and I couldn’t do anything but watch.”

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean says. “He’s not here. Lucifer is still in his cage and Bobby’s fine. He’s right upstairs.”

Old Sam struggles to sit up, his eyes wide and hair standing up. 

“Nothing’s gonna happen this time, okay?” Dean says and Old Sam nods back. Dean pats his shoulder with a smile. “Atta boy.”

Sam looks past them out the window to the lightening horizon at the edge of the night sky. He sighs and pushes past the blankets. No one sleeping any more tonight. Might as well start the coffee. 

  


  


All these bars in South Dakota look the same. Twenty-year-old neon beer signs hang behind a guy with a beard named Bud pouring Bud on tap in his plaid shirt sleeves with a dirty towel over one shoulder.

“What can I get ya?” 

Sam nods at him before choosing a bar stool. “Beer with a whiskey chaser. Wait, just leave the bottle.” In the corner of the bar, a young blonde sets up her microphone stand on a small corner stage and starts to tune her guitar.

“You stink, Sam. Like car grease and ribs.” He hears Ruby behind him but doesn’t turn around. Instead, he throws back a double and chases it down by draining the beer. Ruby taps her red nails on the bar, trying to get his attention. “Speaking of Dean, is the geriatric crew back at Bobby’s?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” he says, keeping his eyes on the girl with the guitar as she sets up. He’s quiet, playing with the cheap cardboard coaster for his drink for a few minutes, pouring another shot from the bottle and drinking it, anything to avoid looking in her sharp eyes.

“Cat got your tongue, Sam? Thought you’d like to know that I got a lead on Lilith.”

He tosses the coaster down and finally turns to face her. “What do you want, Ruby? Even if we found her, what could we do?”

The eye contact seems to encourage her and her hand finds a familiar spot on his forearm that she likes to touch, showing off how tiny this vessel is compared to him as if that makes her any less dangerous. “I got a few tricks up my sleeve if you’d let me show you.” 

He snorts and tries to drink but she holds his arm back effortlessly. “Just come with me tonight. I can show you.” Her lips curl up at the corner of her mouth and Sam can’t help but stare.

“Tell me,” he says with a slur that he doesn’t feel. “Won’t go until I know.”

She bites her lip and he wonders how often she practices this pose, flipping her glossy hair and a hand on her hip. “Fine. What if I told you that the power is already in you. To pull demons, to kill Lilith, to save Dean. We just need to _activate_ it.”

He tilts his head. “And you could activate it how?”

“The old guy didn’t tell you?”

Sam’s mouth turns down and he shakes his head. “There’s a lot of stuff he hasn’t told me.”

Ruby moves in close, so close that her breasts graze his arm and sets her palm flat against his chest. Even in the dim light of the bar, her dark eyes sparkle and Sam’s stomach rolls. “Think about it, Sam. Hell, you could even send that other guy back to his own time so he’s not always hovering over Dean.” When his head snaps up, Ruby smiles. “Why would he leave? There’s no Dean in his future. C’mon, we can’t talk here but just trust me. If you give me tonight, I’ll explain everything.” 

She trails her fingers down his chest and takes his hand in her to pull him off the stool towards the front door but he yanks her back.

“Wait, not that way. Dean might see. Let’s head out the back.” 

Ruby takes the lead as they wind through the small crowd drinking at the bar or moving chairs to listen to the live music. She’s not distracted by the looks from some of the small town cowboys as they pass by and she’s not hesitating with Sam still pliable and moving behind her.

The back door to the bar swings open to a blinding light overhead but the rest of alley is dark. The dumpster is piled high with boxes and day-old food trash, ripe and moist.

She heads for the parking lot but Sam stops and looks back at the darkness where the other end of the alley ends in a T of dirty brick buildings.

“Did you hear that?” He tilts his head and she shakes hers no. When she tries to pull on him again to head to the car, he breaks away and walks slowly around the corner.

“C’mon, Sam, it’s probably some cat,” Ruby says, rolling her eyes but she follows him.

Around the corner in the alley, there’s a rusty door into an auto repair shop that looks like it hasn’t done business for ten years. Sam rolls the heavy door back on its track to reveal a shadowed and cluttered space. When he walks in, Ruby stops before the entrance and looks up and down the alley.

“Nothing but rats in here,” she says, still hesitating at the doorway as Sam moves further into the murk of old boxes and dusty shelves. 

“Ruby, come here. Take a look at what I found,” he says and she ventures a few steps over the threshold and the metal door slams closed behind her.

“Hey--” she shouts as Dean secures the bolt lock on the door. Ruby stares, her mouth hanging open. “What the hell, Dean--”

When Old Sam appears out of the back, side by side with Sam, she twists to face them and looks mad enough to spit. 

“This isn’t funny, Sam.” 

“Ruby, I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Dean says from behind her. She back peddles a few steps, trying to get all of them in her sight at once but she keeps her eye on Dean’s face which is tight with fury. He pulls her knife out of his jacket, gripping the bone handle.

“Wait, it is kinda funny. That you’re dumb enough to think I would just stand here and let you stab me.”

He breaks into a slow smile and then glances up at a detailed Key of Solomon painted in red on the dirty ceiling above Ruby’s head. She follows his eyes and then crosses her arms like she has all the time in the world and not enough patience and turns to face Sam.

“Fine. You got me. Now, what?”

Old Sam steps in and bends down to catch her at eye level and for the first time, her eyes flicker with uncertainty. A smile spreads across his face. “You should be worried, Ruby.”

“Why are you two listening to this psycho? You don’t know what he did in the future.”

“I did a lot of bad things in the future,” Old Sam says, “but you did the worst. Told me I was getting strong to beat Lilith. Talked me into drinking _demon blood_.” He spits out the last two words and she blinks hard. 

“But I haven’t done any of---” She’s interrupted when Dean steps up behind her to hold the knife to her throat. The blade bites at her skin and she stops moving.

“Dean, please,” Sam says as he steps around Old Sam. He walks up to the two of them and places his hand on top of Dean’s on the knife handle. Their eyes meet over Ruby’s shoulder and Dean hands the knife over to him. He keeps his arms around her and even though she could throw him off, she stands still, her palms out and her voice low, like she’s gentling a spooked horse.

“Sam, I promise, I’m only here to help--” 

“With Lilith, I know.” He tests the blade against his thumb. “And you will help. With the blood.”

Behind him, Old Sam begins to chant. It’s not Latin and Ruby looks puzzled, trying to piece together the spell. She doesn’t realize that Dean has stepped away until he is nudging a chair at the back of her legs and she falls into it, unable to move away.

“Are you--” Her puzzlement flashes over to anger in a moment as Old Sam continues to chant, the sharp edges of his Greek impeccable. “Are you _binding_ me? All you had to do was ask, Sam. I would have stayed.”

“I doubt it. Not for this,” he says. Dean comes around from behind with a large metal pail that he sets in her lap. Her eyes go wide at it and she starts to fight against the spell, eying the knife in Sam’s hand. 

“You won’t know what to do with the blood. You need me.”

Old Sam laughs. “You taught me plenty the first time. I’ve had plenty of practice.”

Dean grabs her hair and forces her neck out over the pail. “I’m gonna enjoy this. Okay, Sammy, it’s showtime.”

He watches Ruby squirm in Dean’s hold and then turns to the other Sam and flips the knife over. “This one is yours.”

Old Sam sets aside the invocation and wraps his fingers carefully around the bone handle. He looks lost in thought for a minute as he stares at the blade and Ruby takes his hesitancy as a possible break. 

“Sam, I can help all of you. Whatever happened before with the other Ruby doesn’t mean I can’t help you now.”

“No,” Old Sam says and slashes her throat. It’s deep enough to cause her skin to glow and make the blood run thickly into the bowl but not deep enough to kill her outright. 

  


Dean brings the Impala around to the alleyway and they put the gallon jugs in the trunk. No clean up this time - the warehouse is a quiet spot but there’s enough traffic on the street outside to make them nervous so they leave Ruby’s drained body is left behind.

No one speaks as they head back to Bobby’s. Sam shifts in his seat to watch Old Sam out of the corner of his eye. He sits in the back seat, rotating through looking at his hands in his lap to looking out the window at the passing gravel shoulder. 

“You, okay?” Sam asks.

“Fine” is the quiet response he gets. Sam look across the seat to catch Dean’s eyes. 

“Maybe we’re rushing this,” Sam says. They’re fifteen minutes to Bobby’s and another hour as they set up the summoning spell and let Old Sam get ready with the demon blood. Sam wasn’t eager to know how it was going to work to kill Lilith, but Old Sam’s insistence that he would handle that on his own made Sam nervous. They had improvised on hunts before but that was when it was just him and Dean with run-of-the-mill monsters, not Lucifer’s first-born demon. “We can go through the plan a few more times—“

“No,” Old Sam said, his voice stronger this time. “No more waiting.”

“Dean?” Sam says.

“No, I agree with him. This ends tonight.” Dean’s sharp jawline and the surge of his lips are softly lit by the dashboard light. Sam doesn’t see a trace of the brother that was shaken by the corn wolves or the one having the night terrors. He sees his big brother, the one who is confident in what needs to be done and takes action, and he relaxes. “I don’t want this hanging over our heads.”

“Okay. Ten minutes out,” Sam says.

  


The round half barn on Bobby’s property has been cleared out but still smells of oil and metal shavings from the years of deconstructing and rebuilding cars here. Bobby and Dean spent hours in here working on the Impala engine together and repainting it after John died. The four of them had cleared the workbenches and tools out before the trip to collect Ruby’s blood and Bobby’s been handling the sigil work all over the corrugated steel side and the cement floor.

Sam and Dean walk in and set down bags of some last minute supplies for the summoning ritual.

“Impressive,” Dean says and Bobby sets down a paint brush that is dripping red on some newspapers below him. 

“If by impressive, you mean a pain in the ass.” He studies his own work on the wall - a sigil that neither Sam or Dean has seen before but Old Sam had meticulously drawn out for Bobby. “Sure the other guy’s right about needing all these sigils at the entrances? Seems like we could use some help from angels with all of this?”

“He was right about how to pull Dean from Hell. I’m going guess he’s right about angels being dicks, too.” Sam starts pulling out the supplies and lining them up on a small table to the side - acacia, oil of Abramelin, a brass bowl and knife, candles, and chalk - while Dean walks through, checking the sigils against the sketches Old Sam made and comes to a stop in the middle looking up at another Key of Solomon painstakingly drawn on the ceiling.

“Nice job on the Devil’s Trap. Must have broken your back to get that one done, old man,” Dean smiles at Bobby who flips him off. “Anyone need a beer? I’m thinking we all need one before this starts in a few hours.”

“Make it a bottle of whiskey and I’m in. Why don’t you bring in some of that holy water while you’re at it?” Bobby yells at Dean’s receding back and picks up the paintbrush again to touch up the sigil in front of him. “Where’s the other one?”

Sam thinks about the half gallon jugs of Ruby’s blood that were in the trunk. Old Sam asked for an hour to himself, no interruptions, so Sam shrugs at Bobby. “Getting ready for his part in this.”

“Well, thanks, that’s helpful.”

Sam bends down with a sketch of the demon summoning sigil and begins to sketch it on the newly washed concrete floor. It’s simple enough, with lines like an Aquarian star but wider small knobs at the points. He places the unlit candles along the outer axis and stands back up to find Bobby staring at him.

“What?”

“How are you doing, Sam?”

“I’m fine. Just eager to get this done.”

Bobby nods and pats him on the shoulder. Sam feels a knot loosen in his chest, one he didn’t know was there, because maybe he hasn’t tried as hard as he could with Bobby and if they come out of this, he’ll work at that. He hands him the sheet with the summoning sigil. “What do you think?”

“Looks good.” The outer door opens and Bobby lights up as Dean walks back in with a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and two large salt containers tucked under one arm. “You breaking out my good stuff?” Bobby scowls at the whiskey.

“A lot better than that rot gut you usually drink. Besides, we need something decent to celebrate ganking this bitch,” Dean says as he cracks the cap and takes the first swig and passes it to Sam who drinks and hands it off to Bobby.

Old Sam walks in with more salt and holy water. He waves off the bottle Bobby tries to hand him, looking sheepishly at Sam before wiping at his dry, clean lips as if to remove any last remnant of Ruby there.

“It’s done, then?” Sam asks. The whiskey in his own stomach turns bitter and penny-bright at the thought of drinking that much blood. _Demon blood_ , he corrects himself. The person Ruby wore as a meatsuit was long gone.

“All done. Sigils ready?” Old Sam looks around at the sigils with a look of satisfaction and then back out the open barn door where the sun is burning off its last rays and the sky turns to a dusky blue-black. “Guess there’s no need to put this off any longer.”

Each of them grabs a flask of holy water, tensely quiet as Dean starts a ring of salt around the sigil on the floor and Bobby shuts the barn doors. Sam tries to reassure himself as he lights the candles that while Lilith may be the oldest demon, she’s still just a demon like Yellow Eyes and Dean killed him. They don’t have the Colt this time so it won’t be as easy to put her down but there are two things in their favor. She couldn’t kill Sam the last time they met and now, they have Old Sam in their corner. He killed her in the future using only his demon-blood-fueled powers. 

It should be enough. It’s got to be enough to end this.

Old Sam picks up the sheaf of paper from the table and waits for Sam to finish with the candles before stepping into the salt circle. He breathes deeply several time and swallows before he starts the incantation. “Ad constringendum, ad ligandum eos pariter et solvendum, et ad congregandum eos coram me.”

The sharp smell of ozone fills the barn, like a thunderstorm blowing in, and the hair on his arms stands up as a charge fills the air. He hears the laugh first before the demon appears. Last time he saw Lilith she was wearing a Ruby suit rather than her little girl vessels. Now, she stands before them in a tall blond vessel, curvy with big blue eyes and a killer shark smile and Old Sam pales at the sight of her. Her eyes flick to white when she sees Sam and a chill runs up his spine.

“Nice work on that spell,” Lilith says. She walks leisurely along the outer curve of the devil’s trap and looks at Dean as if measuring a cut of meat. “And what do we have here? How nice of you to deliver him. Like a pizza, all hot and ready to be eaten.” Her gaze shifts to Old Sam, confused, and she leans in to sniff at him. “And another surprise. You brought a Sammy from the future. You have the smell of Lucifer all over you. Looks like he put a few miles on you, too.”

Old Sam gives her a bitter crooked smile and returns the up-and-down look she gave Dean a few minutes before. “You’re looking the same as the last time I saw you. When I killed you.” 

“Did you now? Well, good to know the plan works.” She turns her toothy smile on Dean who flinches away once before he settles into a fighting stance. “And Dean, you ready for another round of Hell? Pretty sure Alastair kept your spot warm.”

Old Sam raises his hand towards Lilith and the smell of ozone mutates to something akin to rotten eggs and burnt meat and she is turned back by his force to face him head-on. “Nobody’s going back. This ends tonight.” He squeezes his fist and her body starts jerking for a few seconds before she unfolds her back and shoulders to stand tall again.

“Awww, is that all you got, Sam from the future? We win when I die. Don’t you get that? No matter what choices you make, I win and Lucifer wins.” She taps her lips with a slender finger as Old Sam huffs in a few breaths. “How about a deal? I send you back to your time. Best offer you’re going to get today.”

 _Demons can’t help themselves_ , Sam thinks, _always talking_. Her hands catch his eyes, the way they are twisting in the air while she talks, and he realizes it’s all a distraction on her part. 

He hears the noise first and then sees the concrete pad below her crack through the sigils. The steel above them makes a terrible wrenching noise and all four men cover their ears, duck as part of the roof where the Devil’s Trap was painted is grinds down, the corrugated steel peeled in strips hanging above Old Sam’s head.

The metallic noise is followed by a long and very human howl of despair from Old Sam as he reaches for Lilith one last time, twisting his own hand in the air as if to reach for her throat. As he clenches his fingers into a fist, Sam can see Old Sam’s eyes turn an oily black and takes a step back. Blood pours in rivulets from the corners of her eye and Lilith’s rib cage and then flares in white gold light. Sam can hear the cracking of bone as Old Sam’s face twists in victory. 

As she struggles to escape his grip, she flings her hand out once more up, up to the ceiling where the roof screeches again as sharp strips are pulled down and apart. Old Sam doesn’t move, his chest starts huffing as he gathers his strength once more for the final crush. Lilith’s head whips back and the burnt golden glow explodes out of her mouth and eyes. The blond meatsuit slumps to the floor.

They stare at her body, her eyes and lips charred to black holes, for a long second before the roof above them shrieks and begins to collapse on itself. The heavy sheets of metal pull down in strips from the supports, destroying the devil’s trap painted there, before crashing on the concrete. The noise is deafening and dust and concrete chips fly up towards the hole in the ceiling as they scramble away from the falling pieces. 

“Dean?” Sam calls out across the dusty space. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Dean says, making eye contact with Sam across the ruins. “Bobby, where are you?”

They hear coughing from the corner and Dean runs over to Bobby, as Sam looks for Old Sam who was standing below the falling wreckage. He can’t see anything but the curled and twisted pieces of metal that are melted at the edges from the last of Lilith’s death throes but he finally hears a low groan from under the largest piece of wreckage.

“Dean, help me!” He grabs the edge but it’s too big to move by himself and he waves Dean over to the far side. They lift the bent metal up and off. It catches on something and Sam holds his breath when he hears moaning underneath.

Old Sam is on his back and Sam kneels down next to him. His eyes, black just a few minutes before, are back to hazel and wet with pain. His face isn’t injured but his hands are soaked with blood where he grasps at his stomach. The shirt is shredded and Sam pulls Old Sam’s hands back to see a gash running from his sternum to gut where blood continues to pour out. 

Dean’s face is a mess of grief as he kneels next to Sam but he keeps his words calm. “You’re gonna be okay. We’ll get you out of here. Bobby, get some towels!”

Old Sam starts to speak but blood bubbles up at the corners of his mouth and Sam shushes him. “Just lay back. We’ll take care of you, okay?”

“No,” Old Sam whispers and he grabs Sam’s sleeve to pull him in and the smell of pennies is overwhelming. “You were right. He isn’t my Dean.” 

In the background, Sam hears Bobby handing Dean towels and saying something about another wound on Old Sam’s leg and Dean’s working to wrap and apply pressure on the two wounds.

“It’s alright,” Old Sam cups Dean’s face with his bloody hand, “My Dean's waiting for me.”

Dean pauses and then glances at Lilith’s dead vessel and back to Old Sam’s pale face. “You did it. No more apocalypse.”

Old Sam lets out a wet chuckle. “For now. I’m sure you two will find more trouble without me. But at least you’ll be together.” His breath hitches before his head falls to the side and silence fills the barn.

  


Maybe they didn’t have a blueprint for this, Sam thinks as he throws two more logs on the pyre and Dean lights it from the other side. All the two of them wanted was to save Dean - saving the world took a backseat to that. It’s only been six weeks since the other Sam came into his life and Sam feels an uncertain kind of grief as the flames climb. Dean stares into the flames, his eyes shiny with tears that haven’t fallen. 

They’ve felt grief before, the two of them standing before Dad’s pyre and circling around each other in the weeks following, unsure how to deal. But this is different. That’s Sam’s future in there, what he could have become in another life. Dean joins him and they stand side by side, watching as the pyre flames up against the stacked cars in Bobby’s yard. “He saved our skins. I should say, _you_ saved our skins.”

Sam nods and wrestles with his grief for a part of himself. The part who figured a way back through time to help them, to set things right. He and Dean won’t have to face that future of loss and betrayal or make those decisions because of the choices this Sam made. 

This isn’t loss, Sam realizes. It’s a gift - a clean start for the two of them. 


End file.
